Mahieran stepped forward; the Marshal-General met him, and together they lifted the crown of Tsaia from its stand. Together they held it over his head.

“All here witness the High Lord’s blessing, Gird’s grace, and the consent of nobles of this realm, of the crowning of Mikeli, King of Tsaia.” They lowered the crown to his head and stepped back.

The Marshal-General handed him a different sword, this one obviously old, in a battered scabbard. “Gird’s sword: may you wield it to defend your realm.” He took it, kissed it, and handed it back to her.

Mahieran handed him a scepter. “The staff of law: may you wield it to defend the right.” Again Mikeli took it, kissed it, and handed it back. The Bells pealed again, a great clamor, and trumpets blew a deafening fanfare.

When silence fell again, Mikeli, now king of Tsaia, waited while servants removed the pillars and ropes. Then the nobles closed in from side to side, the two lines slightly offset so that Duke Mahieran was a half stride in front of Dorrin. As each knelt and gave the oath of fealty, he clasped their hands, and bent to kiss their heads as they kissed his hand. Dorrin found it more moving than she had expected.

After returning the court chain of office to the Master of Ceremonies and putting off the great robe, she mingled with other nobles and their families in the airy second-floor reception room before the formal procession. She’d been allowed to invite her distant relative Ganarrion Verrakai, cleared of any suspicion of conspiracy and freed from prison only a few days before she arrived in Vérella. He wore his Royal Guard uniform. They’d never met; they fumbled some time for a common topic before she mentioned Paksenarrion, and he brightened. “I met her, on her way to Lyonya,” he said. “Were you her commander, in Phelan’s company?”

Dorrin explained, and from there they chatted easily about military matters, horses, and the strange ways of the gods. The king had suggested Ganarrion as a possible heir; the more she talked to him, the more she was inclined to agree. They did not mention the Order of Attainder or the continuing search for their fugitive relatives. “Come stay with me in Verrakai’s city house,” she said.

“My pardon, my lord Duke, but I cannot. I am on duty, as we all are—this leave of a few hours is all I can spend with you. Please understand, it is not lack of respect.”

“Of course not,” Dorrin said. “But we should know each other better. Perhaps you can visit in the east—for Midwinter Feast, if that’s allowed. If not, I will understand.”

“Thank you, my lord,” he said. “When do you return to the east?”

“In a few days,” Dorrin said. “I have much to do there. I will return for Autumn Court, of course. I will be presenting an old friend, Jandelir Arcolin, who was Phelan’s senior captain and is now to gain a title and take over that domain.”